The objectives of the proposed project are to determine the effects of inflammation on gingival collagen metabolism in diabetic rats and eventually humans. Gingival inflammation in normal and diabetic rats will be induced by endotoxin injection. Some tissues will be sequentially extracted in 1 m NaCl plus 3% acetic acid to separate the soluble and insoluble collagen fractions. These will be hydrolized and analyzed for Hyp. In other experiments, the gingiva will be incubated with H3-Pro. The total H3-Hyp formed, reflecting collagen synthesis in culture, will be determined by adding the H3-Hyp left in the tissue and released into the media after incubation. The tissue residues will be extracted (see above) and both soluble and insoluble fractions will be analyzed for H3-Hyp after hydrolysis and chromatography on Dowex H plus columns. The extractability to the H3-Hyp labeled collagen will provide a measure of collagen maturation in culture. Additional experiments will (1) compare the molecular weights and relative amounts of monomer and dimer subunits of tendon collagen from normal and diabetic rats, and (1) will initiate studies on human gingival collagen turnover in vitro, using the culture techniques described above. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Golub, L.M., Garant, P.R. and Ramamurthy, N.S. 1977. Inflammatory changes in gingival collagen in the alloxan diabetic rat. J. Periodont. Res. in press. Borden, S.M., Golub, L.M. and Kleinberg, I. 1977. The effect of age and sex on the relationship between crevicular fluid and gingival inflammation in humans. J. Periodont. Res. in press.